Myths of Empire Domestic Politics and International Ambition by Jack Snyder Michael Walter 2015/04/15 Designing Social Inquiry

Research Question Why has overexpansion been so common among the great powers, and also why some states have been particularly inclined toward extreme overexpansion?

Independent Variable (IV): «State`s security can be safeguarded only through expansion.» Dependent Variable (DV): Leading to «Counterproductive agressive policies»

3 Rationales for Expansion 1. The Domino Theory: Cummulative Territorial Gains and Losses Expansion as tool to add to state`s strength and ability for self-defense – Main Reason: AUTARKY – lacking self-suffiency for resources needed for war -> higher security. 2. Offensive Advantage: «Best defense is a good offense – Cheaper defense of empire, Advantage of first strike potential. 3. Paper Tigers and Bandwagon: Faith in Threats Threatening behaviour is expected to create allies (bandwagon effect) and initmidate opponents.

3 Theories of overexpansion 1)Realist Theory: Competiton among states, anarchy – War at any time 2)Cognitive explanations: process of information under uncertainty. Reliance on only available date and applying theories and rules of thumb -> Can lead to shortcuts -> decisions probably towards a certain direction. 3)Domestic Explanations: patterns of behavior in politics and policy outcomes (e.g. interest groups influencing decision making process)

Case Selection Germany – Pre first WWI, WWI, WWII Japan – Meiji Restoration - WWII Britain – 19th century Soviet Union – Gorbachev United States – Cold War  Selection Bias – only supporting cases for his hypotheses and theories

Conclusion  Good observations and theories applied to explain certain behaviors and pattern of these states  Only 5 supporting cases – one dimensional approach – higher variation!  No first-hand data – reliance on historical data alone  Limiting scope of research through adjusting title (adding the period)